More Pictures . . . and a helpful hint

Hey guys. Right after I posted my last blog post, my mom came over (she'd taken a half day off) to come see Wyatt for a few minutes. She's always had this desire to take a picture of him in a onesie laying on my arm, so we did it, and the result was really cute. There was also a cute shot of me holding him. Here they are:





Does his hair look red to you? And I'm pretty sure those eyes are staying blue . . . especially if you compare them to mine. And he always looks a bit more piggynosed in pictures than he does in person. Don't know why that is. I think I looked piggynosed in my baby pictures, too. Luckily, I'm piggynosed no longer. Although I do have an aforementioned nose bump. And a really oily forehead, apparently! Sheesh! Don't click on that picture of me to magnify it. (Now all of you will, of course.)

Also, if you want to see the Kiddie Kandids shots, it seems you need a username and password. Because you are all such trusted friends, I'll share it with you: It's ahallstrom, password ethan1.

Shh . . . don't tell anyone! :-)

Plus Three Pictures

I thought I'd throw a few pictures on the blog, too (even though they're not very good!).

Pic #1: As close a shot as we've gotten to Wyatt smiling. His fist is in the way, though, and it's not really a true smile. But you can see his dimples!

Pic #2: Brothers! Cuties.

Pic #3: Jonas took this picture of Wyatt and Mommy. Just like the Kiddie Kandids lady, though, he waited too long and missed the happy shot and ended up taking a fussy shot. Doesn't Wyatt look determined?

Cheetos anyone?

Wyatt has been a very good boy of late. I've also gone SEVEN DAYS WITHOUT CHOCOLATE!! I hate to say that there's a connection between his gassines/fussiness and my eating chocolate, but I'm to afraid to test it out to try, especially now that Forrest is going to be gone for a little stretch. (He left for LA today, gets home Friday night, then Saturday he's skiing with the kids all day, then Sunday is Stake Conference and he has to be there at 7:00 a.m., then he's out of town Monday and Tuesday--so I have a long stretch of alone Mommy time! Luckily he doesn't have any more trips for the next little while.) I'm also nervous about vegetables, dairy, beans and orange juice. Needless to say, I've had fewer dietary choices! I've never considered myself a chocoholic, but it's an eye opener to realize how many little "treats" have chocolate in them and how often you can have just a nibble. So I've had to turn to other types of junk food like peach rings (love em) and Cheetos. So unless I'm banned from eating orange foods, I'm good to go there. How much they interfere with losing my final 10 pounds (and the 10 pounds on top of that I'd like to loose, too) I'm too tired to think about right now. Nursing mothers get an extra 300 calories, right? :-)

This weekend the kids had their first skiing lesson. Jonas and Ethan did pretty well, but Elise struggled some. She has such long skinney legs it's hard to balance on those skis. I think it's almost better to start at Jonas's age because the center of gravity is so much lower and they get to use those little skis. But--good news!--Forrest took Elise up yesterday to have a one on one lesson, and she got the hang of it!! She was so proud of herself, and I was glad, too. I don't have any need for the kids to be awesome skiiers or anything--I mean, I'm not--but just to have the ability so you can go and shush down the hill with the rest of the family is all I care about. I'm sure I'll always be the one bringing up the rear.

While the kids were skiing, I went to lunch with my Mom. Wyatt was nice enough to stay asleep throughout, so we got to eat and chat, which was great. Then we went to Kiddie Kandids and got Wyatt's 1 month picture taken. It's always an "experience" getting a baby's picture taken. One thing that is INFURIATING is when they get the baby all posed, the baby is calm, and you know you have a window of about 7 seconds to take the picture before they start to cry. But instead of taking it they hem and haw and keep fussing over the baby--argghh! Our photographer missed a good three or four shots doing that and it irritated my Mom so much she had to walk away :-). Luckily we did get two semi-good shots, which is all you can ask for with a one month old being scruched up on a scratchy carpet with his fists placed forcefully under his chin. Here's the shots at Kiddie Kandids online:

http://mystudio.kiddiekandids.com/home.asp?page=1

He's looking grumpy in the first shot, but he's looking pretty good in the next two, I think.

I've also gotten a few smiles from Wyatt here and there, but nothing predictable enough to get a picture. But soon!

Well, that's about it. Other than a few quick pop culture observations:

1. I'm glad the boys did better on AI last night. Still nobody I LOVE but at least they're doing better.

2. I'm getting tired of all the torture on 24. When they did the promo for next week's episode and Jack threatened to cut off a Russian dignitary's fingers one at a time, Forrest and I both laughed out loud because it's getting ridiculous. Come on, writers! Think of something else!

3. I did watch the Oscars. Genuinely pained over the weird metallic jacket worn by Jennifer Hudson on the red carpet, but luckily she took it off once she went inside. Also wasn't so sure about Nicole Kidman's red dress with the ginormous bow at the neck--but at least it was memorable! Thought Ellen did okay. Thought the ceremony was mostly boring. Liked the weird acrobat people who formed shadow images with their bodies, though. And the Jack Black/Will Ferrel musical number.

4. It turns out the Britney Spears shaved her head in order to avoid having her hair tested for drugs in a custody battle with K. Fed. And that she was going to kill herself with family sized Tylenol. Normally I don't really care much about Britney Spears, but for some reason I feel so sorry for her.

5. I think Anna Nicole Smith's mother is horrible. Just let your daughter be buried already!

6. I'm glad that Oprah built that school in Africa for all those darling girls, but I still think she's overly self involved. They kept playing the clip for the ABC Special on the show and when Oprah said, "Welcome to the best day of MY life," it bugged a little. But it's okay, I suppose. She's doing a lot of good.

7. Not pop cutural but political: I'm hoping that Mitt Romney can figure out a way to seem more genuine. Not only is his hair stiff, but his answers to questions already seem overly rehearsed and the election is eons away. And I'm uncomfortable with his hard right turn in order to gain sway among primary voters. I suppose that it is possible to have a change of opinion so late in life and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but joining the NRA? C'mon, dude. Not necessary. Just be yourself. And I'm a firm moderate anyway, so if he starts getting too hardcore conservative his going to bug himself right out of my good graces.

Now Wyatt's waking up. Sorry not a lot of pictures!

Also: Everyone in Utah, Wyatt is going to be blessed on March 11th (we have stake conf. on the first Sunday) and you're all invited. We have 1:00 church but our sacrament meeting is last, so be there about 2:45! We'll have dinner at our place afterwards.

The Sale is Off!

Yesterday I was just about ready to sell Wyatt to the Indians. (Yes, I know this sounds racist but it's a family saying that probably goes back many generations--so do I get a pass? Not sure how it started. Can't imagine there are a lot of Indians, American OR Asian, in the baby buying market anyway.) He'd been quite fussy on Wednesday, causing Mom and Dad do do a lot of bouncing and "sh sh sh"ing and making Mom panic that she's going to find herself with a full blown colicky baby. Then Thurs. night he slept his usual--through to 1:00 in his crib--but he was up just about every hour after that and would not be put back down to sleep, and Dad had to leave at 5:45 a.m. to catch a plane to Seattle (his first business trip since the baby--aack!) so when Mom did sleep, it was all crinked up on the couch, patting Wyatt's gassy little bum and humming desperate lullabies. As I was getting the three older kids out the door to catch the bus, Wyatt was screaming in his swing since I needed my hands free to zip zippers and whatnot and Ethan said, "Mom, it seems kind of miserable to be stuck here all alone all day with that baby." Ha.

So yesterday morning I was grumpy. Quite.

But things steadily improved as the day went on. Wyatt decided to NOT scream all day and instead invested some energy in napping and lying on his blanket on the floor looking at sunbeams, which made me inclined to forgive him. He relapsed a little when I had to take the boys to karate and decdided to take Wyatt and Elise to the grocery store during lessons. Wyatt is not a big fan of riding in the car (dang!), and although I've taken him to Target with few problems, he has also decided that he's not a big fan of Harmon's, either. I was irritated to find that his car seat didn't fit in the top part of the cart (what's up with that?) so I tried putting him and his car seat in the shopping basket, leaving precious little space for actual groceries. But he wouldn't stop crying, so I picked him up and had Elise push the cart around and fill up his car seat with bananas and Caffeine Free Diet Coke and hot dogs. Older kids are helpful in such situations.

In order to help remedy Wyatt's gassy problem, I've had to start eliminating things from my diet (hence the Caffeine Free). I think it's a sick joke and rather cruel that one of the things they say can cause a gassy baby is chocolate. A part of me believe that some sadistic pediatrican (probably male! or female and bitter!) made it up just to torture women a little bit more. But I haven't had chocolate or caffeine since Tuesday . . . and (dang it!) I think Wyatt's feeling better.

No fair! Although a non-gassy, happy baby is worth giving up chocolate for. But why couldn't it be, say, eggs that caused problems??? They also say that dairy can be an issue, but I'm not ready to go down that road yet. But last evening he was a pretty good boy--no more extended screaming sessions after the Harmon's debacle--and last night he SLEPT IN HIS CRIB!!! He did his regular 10-1 sleep, then I very gingerly, and with a prayer in my heart, put him back in the crib after his 1:00 feeding and he slept till 4!!! After that feeding he only slept in his crib until 5:45 and we ended up on the couch together until the kids woke up for school, but I'll take it. And this morning has been great. He sat in his bouncy seat and batted around at the toys during my whole shower and even let me get dressed and put on makeup with out crying to be picked up. So he gets a gold star. Right now he's taking a good nap, too, so I've decided to call of the sale. We'll keep Wyatt Dean.

Here's another good reason to keep him. Cuteness:



There's some spit up on his shirt, but he's still cute. Oh, and here's a hilarious picture of Grandma Sweat doing "hairdryer therapy" on Wyatt. When he's crying the hairdryer will always make him stop and go into a kind of stunned trance. It's Grandma's favorite trick.



In his little baby brain, Wyatt's thinking, "So this is what goes on on Earth? Huh!"

Oh, and I have to give a shout out to Grandma who came over Wednesday night and let Forrest and I go out to dinner. It was great. We also stopped by the Sports Authority and got the kids some gear for their ski lessons on Saturday. Jonas has a half-day class and Ethan and Elise have full day (9:30-3:30) classes for the next five weeks. So Mom and Wyatt will be home alone on Saturdays for the next little bit! I think Dad's excited, too, because he gets to snowboard while they ski for the next five weeks and doesn't have to feel guilty about it.

Here's the kids and their gear. We'll let you know how the lessons go!

First Day at Church

Yesterday was Wyatt's first church outing and he did great. He needed to go in an eat immediately after we got there (isn't it hard to get the timing thing down?), but after he ate he was awake and happy for a bit and then fell asleep for the rest of the meeting. So other than ending up with a really sore left arm from holding him, I'd say the day was a success. (Although nursing in the mother's room w/ the other mothers reminded me so well of doing the same thing w/ Jonas and lamenting that I'll never be one of those super-discreet, nurse-anywhere types. I get too self-conscious, and I'm just not that slick at it. I can never figure out how people get their baby's latched on under a blanket without being able to see what they're doing. I always have to put my head under the blanket, too, so I can see, and then end up feeling like a nursing dork.)

To make up for the decidedly unflattering shot of Wyatt screaming in the last post, here's a cute one:



Here's a shot of Jonas, too, hanging out during his last basketball game. I think he had a pretty good time playing this year, and ended up making some baskets along the way, which was cool. For Jonas, though, the most important thing was getting his TROPHY!



Now I'm going to engage in some stream-of-consciousness, blogging minutae. Feel free to respond to any, or none, of the topics below.

-I think it's because I'm a tad post-pardum, but I feel a little bit of empathy for Britney Spears. Poor Brit and her sad little shaved head. I think her mom needs to take her to Montana or somewhere without a lot of paparazzi and make her stay in bed while she brings her hot chocolate and soup. I just think about how tired I am right now (and I am tired--bone tired--more tired than I remember being with the others--tired enough that I'm suprised to be this tired) and I think of Britney with the two babies in two years, barely a year apart, and it's no wonder she's gone off the deep end. Talk about hormones out of whack and a body that's no longer your own, etc. etc., and a part of me can see why she might shave her own head in a bit of misguided rebellion. It just makes me feel bad that people are laughing at her and making fun of her since it's pretty clear she's undergoing some kind of a breakdown. The kid needs some alone time.

-The Amazing Race: All-Stars started last night. Yessss! And we get to have Rob and Amber! I am not ashamed to say that it makes me happy that the two of them are still together and, yes, I'm rooting for them. For those of you who DON'T watch Survivor or the Amazing Race, you will not care about this one whit. But Andi . . . are you for Rob and Amber or against them? I know a lot of people thought they were too ruthless last time, but I can't help liking them for some reason. And it's great to have Charla and Mirna back again. Even though one of them is a midget, I think the non-midget (can't remember which one that is) is the more compeling of the two. She's so . . . well, strange. That Spanish accent that comes and goes. The weird flirting with non-receptive guys. She's great.

-I do not care about the Academy Awards much this year, which makes me sad because I love movies and usually love the Academy Awards. But I have seen so few of the movies this time that it's hard to get excited. I've seen Dreamgirls (liked it fine, didn't love it, but was happy to see Jennifer Hudson do such a good job); The Queen (really a very good movie, but Helen Mirren isn't as fun to watch at the Oscars as, say, Julia Roberts. Or even Renee Zellwegger or Reese Witherspoon). So I say "eh" to the Oscars this year. Too bad.

-What do we think about the Priesthood/Relief Society manuals? They can be very effective in the right hands, but oooohh, when people just read through the quotes one after another it's torture. No?

-On the way to church yesterday, Ethan said that he's been troubled by the idea that even though we "believe in God really hard" (his words), don't other people in other religions believe in their idea of God just as much as we do? So how can we say that they're wrong and we're right? He's had the same deep thoughts about Sadaam Hussein ("we think he's going to hell because he killed a lot of people, but I bet that people in Iraq think that George Bush is going to hell because he's killed a bunch of people, too. So who does God agree with, us or them?") It's wonderful to have a child who can think so deeply and broadly, but it also lets me know that we'll most definitely be having some interesting philosophical discussions with this one as he grows up.

-All Moms of diapered children: The newest version of Pampers are TERRIBLE. They have this awful weave-like material that sticks to Wyatt's behind and gives him diaper rash. Makes me want to write Pampers a disgruntled email. And I bought a big case of them before I knew!

-All Moms, period: Were you as tired as me when you're babies were little?

So that's it for now. The kids are outside sledding since we got a nice dumping of new snow this morning. And last night we made brownies, so I think I'm going to go cut myself a sliver and eat it and enjoy it before Wyatt wakes up from his nap!

Buckets of Fuss

Wyatt is generally a good boy . . . the key word being "generally." I have decided, officially, that he's a little high maintenaince. It's hard to know their true personality until they're at least a couple of weeks old, and although he does have his moments of "quiet alert" time (meaning he's awake, looking around calmly, not grunting or wriggling or crying), these moments generally don't last very long. One of the pamphlets that I came home with from the hospital is called the "Purple Period of Crying" and Elise wanted to know if and when Wyatt would literally turn purple. Well here's a shot I took this morning that he comes pretty close :-).



This shot is what we affectionatly call a "fuss bucket" shot.

He's not like this all the time, though. Sometimes he's nice and quiet, like this shot I took this morning after Forrest had him from 6:00-7:30 and got him all calmed down by lying him on his tummy in front of the fire and rubbing his back:



And this shot, content after finishing a feeding:



Wyatt is ALWAYS happy if he's eating, though. I try not to resort to feeding him all the time, of course--but at least there's one sure fire thing that makes him happy. He also likes to be rocked, which is great since I hate having to "walk" a baby around the room. He'll snuggle right into the crook of my arm and suck vigorously on his binki and be content as can be, as well. The key is that he is being held. I think I've held him, ohh, 92% of the day so far. Craziness! He's finally deep asleep enough that he's snoozing away in his swing and I can get some things done. (So what do I do? Blog! Although I was able to get some other chores done, like cleaning up the kitchen--big accomplishment for the day!!--with him in his baby Bjorn, and I addressed some thank you cards with him in the crook of my leg, but that only lasted about 6 minutes until he was done and wanted my ARMS, thank you very much.) As you can see, blogging only occurs when he's deeply asleep, as both arms are not only helpful, but necessary.

I have to give a shout out to my Jonas, too. Today he came home from Kindergarten at 11:30--and I felt like he's been gone, oh, 25 minutes, that's how fast the morning seems to go and how little I seem to get accomplished . . . I managed to change out of my robe after showering two hours previously 5 minutes before he walked in the door! But when Jonas came home, Wyatt was sleeping for a bit so I could make Jonas his lunch, talk to him about his day, etc., for a bit before Wyatt woke up. But once Wyatt woke up Jonas was on his own. Well his Grandma Hallstrom sent the kids a Valentine's package and Jonas's present was a Lego kit. Jonas Leo sat on the floor in the family room working on his Lego car, piece after painstaking piece, for TWO HOURS. No kidding. This instruction booklet was 30 pages long, and he did the entire thing himself. Every once in a while I would ask if he needed help and he woud say, "No, no, I can get this, Mom." He was so patient and focused, I couldn't believe it. He's definitely the most likely of all the kids to pick a project like this and stick with it for that long without getting frustrated. Here's a shot of the final product:



One final thought. During my many hours in the green rocking chair today, I watched CNN for a bit where Wolf Blitzer was discussing Mitt Romney's announcement of his presidential candidacy. They started talking about the "Mormon Question," and interviewed a rep from North Carolina (this is your dude, Andrew and Andi! Don't know his name, though) who called himself an Evangelical Christian and responded to Romney's Mormonism thusly: "The fact that he's a Mormon gives me pause. As a Christian, I'm concerned about the history of Mormonism and the theology of Mormonism. But what concerns me most is the practices of Mormonism." Cut to Wolf nodding his head sympathetically. The "practices" of Mormonism? What the heck? I could give it to him on the theology part, what with the men becoming Gods, God with a body living on a planet, modern day prophecy, baptisms for the dead,etc. etc. I can see how mainstream Christains would find those things strange. But practices? What practices, praytell, do modern day Mormons engage in that concern him so much? The high levels of tension at ward basketball games? The prevalence of scrapbooking among the women? LDS Miss America contestants who insist upon wearing modest, but unattractive, swimsuits, thereby dooming their chances to win the competition? Come ON! I was surprised that it actually hurt my feelings a bit. Imagine if the candidate was Jewish, or even Muslim, and this dude said the same thing? I felt like, okay, guy, go ahead and raise your eyebrows at my belief system--you can believe what you want (e.g. "check this box on the pamphlet I left under your windshield wiper and congratulations, you're saved!") and you let me believe what I want--but why start casting aspersions on the way we live our lives? I think it just reinforces sterotypes that we have all sorts of weird, secret shenanigans going on that the wider world just hasn't found out about yet. Kind of sad. But I guess we'll have to be ready for it as the presidential campaign continues.

So that's it from here. I've probably used up all my availible two-hand-time for the rest of the day--but what the heck! Who needs a made bed, right? :-)

Newsy

I have been watching altogether too much television, and most of that television has been news. (It's amazing how little there is on television that's watchable, really). So I can tell you all about Anna Nicole's shocking death (and that Stern attorney/Machiavelli is highly suspicious to me); the awful natural gas house explosion in Saratoga Springs; the runaway pregnant teenagers who assaulted their live-in caseworker with a frying pan; Real Salt Lake, Dave Checketts, the mayor of Salt Lake County, Governor Hunstman and the stadium in Sandy; every single person who might be contemplating a run for the White House in 2008, including your more under-the-radar candidates like Chuck Hegel; the national study on skyrocketing Autism rates; and, finally, the wacky diaper-wearing Astronaut stalker lady. I could totally anchor a news show right now.

Last night my mom came and helped us out at night again, which was so nice and which allowed me to get a little bit more sleep. I feel really good today, as a matter of fact. I think that Wyatt has a bit of a cold--he's been sneezing and has some congestion--but nothing too bad (yet! cross fingers and toes!). Today is also the last day of "off track" for the kids. It's been nice not to have to get them out the door at 7:30--as a matter of fact, I'm a bit worried about doing that next week since I'm typically at my most hammered right around then. I'll just have to power through. But it will also be nice to have some peace and quiet, too, and not have to worry about entertaning the kids. I must say that they've been very good since the baby's been born. Not a lot of fighting, and they've all been incredibly helpful with the baby, fetching me things and quieting down when I ask them to. They're good kids. I have had five kids instead of four lately, though, because Ethan's friend Cameron (son of the Salt Lake District Attorney, previously mentioned in this blog :-) has basically been living here all week. He showed up this morning at EIGHT O'OCLOCK!! Luckly Ethan was up and I made him answer the door and politely tell Cameron it was (ahem) a bit early for playing and that he could come back later. I've fed him lunch almost every day this week (turkey with lettuce--he's very specific--yesterday after he finished his first sandwich he asked for another but I told him no--is that mean?) and about 30 minutes ago he came up from downstairs while I was feeding the baby, opened the fridge, poured himself a glass of milk, grabbed some Oreos and started heading back downstairs before I said, "Hey, Cameron? Maybe next time you could ask before you get food?" and he said, "Oh! Sorry! I asked Ethan, though, and he said yes." SIgh. He's actually a very nice kid in a lot of ways, just not a lot of adult supervision. He has a live-in nanny, but she's not the most attentive nanny on the block. Elise has been playing a lot at her friend's house, though--so I'm sure they're starting to feel like she's living *there*. I am at least grateful that all the kids have other kids to play with and aren't lonely.

So here are some more pictures. One is the possible announcement picture that my Mom referred to in the last post, the other is just a cute one of Wyatt, and then there's a shot of Ethan getting his Webelos badge. I felt bad because I didn't go, so he didn't get to give me the little pin! I think I'm going to start venturing out soon, though. Which brings me to this question: Wyatt will be three weeks old on Sunday. Do you think he's old enough to go to church, or should I still keep him home, considering it's sick season? Some people in my ward keep their baby's home for three months (which I WON'T be doing) . . . and I am starting to get antsy to get outdoors again. What do you guys think?

Vote on Birth Announcement Photos

Wyatt and I had a little photo shoot this morning and I want your input about which pic would be best for a birth announcement. Some are in black and white and some are in color--and I'm still not sure what I like best. So let me know.

Today it's WARM in Utah. The kids have been outside playing, which is nice. I can use the quiet! The night before last Wyatt slept pretty well, but last night was a little bit rougher. What made things harder was that Forrest had to go to LA for a day trip today (left at 5:45, gets home tonight), so I didn't get my two hours in the morning, gear up for the day sleep. Wyatt woke up at about 5:30, but was fitful until about 7:30. When I finally got him tired enough to be able to lay down with him and sleep on the couch, I could already hear the kids upstairs and knew they'd come down and wake me up asking for breakfast--but I was so tired that just 10 minutes was precious. Well, to my surprise when I opened my eyes it was 9:30 . . . and the kids were still upstairs!!! Turns out that Elise came down about 8:00, saw that I was asleep, and told the boys they couldn't come down until I woke up because I needed my rest. Is that a good girl or what?? I was so grateful. Now I can function the rest of the day.

Also, my bones are too old for this baby business. My left heel hurts from propping up my leg on the ottoman while I feed him, my left knee hurts because that's the leg I put my crossed right leg on while I nurse him and when I (accidentally) fall asleep while nursing my leg stays like that for waaay to long, both of my wrists hurt from curling my hands around his body while he's sleeping on me, and my left arm constantly aches because that's the arm I use to hold him. I know for sure that I didn't have all these aches and pains when I was a 24 year old mom.

So here's the pictures--let me know what you think!

Light at the end of the tunnel

Oh, hallelujah, I'm feeling a little bit better. Yesterday was a really hard day. Forrest had been planning to go on this snowmobiling trip with the Wilkey family for months and we'd lined up my Mom to stay with me the night he was gone. If I hadn't have been sick, it would not have been such a big deal. I even thought I was better by Wednesday evening. But Wed night was a hard one and I only got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. I think the lack of sleep thrust me back into the clutches of sickness because the coughing came back with a vengance. Forrest left early that morning without really knowing that I was getting sick again. So yesterday I was sick, feverish, and operating on 3 1/2 hours of sleep--and due to Wyatt waking up or the phone ringing or the kids' friends coming over or the kids basically running crazily throughout the house, I was never able to take a nap. I just kind of moaned and shuffled around. Finally my mom heard the sound of my voice on the phone and decided to leave work early to come and rescue me (bless her). So my mom came and my dad took the kids to karate lessons and I crashed from about 5-7 p.m. and woke up feeling 10 times better. Then my mom took Wyatt until about 1:00 a.m. and let me sleep even more--and even after 1:00 a.m., Wyatt ate and fell right back asleep and I got a couple more good chunks of rest. Now my mom and dad have the three older kids and are taking them on a little adventure today: they're riding the Trax downtown to go to the cool public library. So I just got Wyatt down for a nap, the house is nice and quiet, I'm not coughing much anymore, and I think I just might make it.

When Forrest called yesterday he felt terrible and told me that I get all the sleeping and footrubs and special food I want all weekend. So hopefuly the good times will keep rolling :-).

Here are some more pictures. Babies change so much, so fast, in the first few weeks. I already feel like Wyatt is bigger, although chances are good that he's still just right around his birthweight. We'll see at his 2 week appointment on Monday.

This first picture is of Jonas and Ethan. In the course of 24 hours they both received fat lips (see why I can't nap?). Ethan was responsible for both fat lips, giving Jonas his with a rogue karate move and getting his while flinging himself over something in the basement (I'm still not entirely sure of the whole story):



And of course, here's some more cute ones of Wyatt. The first one is a sweet picture of him sleeping that I fiddled with a bit on my photo software.



"Hey, Mom! Stop taking my picture at 2:00 in the morning!"



And I think he looks like such a big boy in this shot. He's been spending a lot more time just looking around and even engaging with us. It's fun to look into his eyes and see somebody in there!